


Absolution

by thedevilchicken



Category: Ben-Hur (1959)
Genre: Ableist Language, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amputation, Disability, Drabble Sequence, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Post-Canon, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-26
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-28 08:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5084536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken





	Absolution

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlterEgon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlterEgon/gifts).



He sees him in the forum one hot afternoon. 

It’s just a moment’s glimpse between the curtains of his litter but in that moment he knows it’s him. He’s walking, talking with men whose faces Messala knows but whose names he can’t put to them. He’s been too long away from Rome. He’s severed his connections. 

“Take me home,” he says, voice tight, chest tight, and the litter-bearers turn back the way they came. It was a mistake to come. 

He won’t let himself be seen. He’s not the man he used to be. 

He won’t meet Judah this way. 

 

“I want to walk,” he says. 

His physician is not convinced and so he finds another. 

The replacement tells him it can’t be done: just look at the beggars in the street with their missing limbs, wouldn’t they walk if they could?

“I’m no beggar,” he says, all fire, all ire. He won’t listen to a man who tells him no. 

The Greek comes, with Latin so heavily accented that Messala stops him, speaks to him in Greek instead. He’s educated, after all. 

“It will not be simple,” says the Greek. “It will hurt.” 

He’ll take the pain. It’s nothing.

 

He sees Judah everywhere he goes, until he’s no longer sure he ever saw him at all. 

“Judah Ben-Hur,” he says, on his couch at dinners, with old acquaintances in the forum, offhand. “Have you seen him?”

No one knows the name. He finds he can’t describe the face. Perhaps the circus took more than his legs; some days he’ll wake and won’t recall that he lost them. Was he ever in Judaea? He smiles. When he smiles, they forget he’s half who he was.

He sees Judah everywhere he goes, until he’s no longer sure he existed at all. 

 

The Greek has fashioned him prostheses and that’s what they are: they’re attachments, they’re not part of him. He wonders what became of his legs, once they’d been cut away. 

The Greek straps the prostheses to what remains of his legs. The circus surgeons took them off below the knee while he roared against the strap between his teeth, strained against the straps around his wrists, pushed against the hands that held him down. 

He walks. The Greek was right: it hurts. He falls. The prostheses rub him raw. He’s weak; he needs practice.

“Persevere,” says the Greek. 

He will.

 

One of his generous meals bears unexpected fruit, months later. 

“They call him Quintus Arrius.” The guest’s drunk on wine. “Best charioteer in the Empire. Safe bet, if he’d race for money.”

Messala smiles and smiles. He’d forgotten the name but now it returns: Young Arrius, the freedman, citizen of Rome. 

He puts on his prostheses when his guests are gone, straps them into place, stands, teeters. Perhaps his slaves mock him behind their hands, in corners, but he won’t care, can’t. 

He’s practiced. He’s stronger. He’s ready.

The invitation’s sent. He writes it himself, once he’s steadied his hand.

 

Over the months, the Greek has made adjustments, refinements. 

Over the months, Messala has worked, practiced, persevered. 

The doors open and in strides Quintus Arrius the Younger. His skin is tanned from the sun, as Messala’s used to be, before. His shoulders are broad beneath his tunic, which is in the Roman style. He is Judah and not Judah and Messala, for a moment, is returned to the circus in Antioch, bloody and angry and torn.

“Young Arrius,” Messala says, and takes a step toward him. 

“Messala.” 

Judah’s eyes are on him. He walks but he can feel no triumph. 

 

Judah returns in the morning. 

Their meal was rich, lavish, but did not impress and others had been more polite before. Arrius stared at Messala’s legs, his prostheses, the join where flesh meets wood. Then they said goodnight. 

In the morning, Judah returns, unexpected. Messala scrambles his prostheses into place and walks as if he feels no pain. They’re perfectly proportioned, carved like the legs he lost, wearing sandals; his vanity amuses the Greek. 

“Arrius,” Messala says. 

Judah laughs bitterly. 

“Does it help to call me that?” he says.

To Messala’s shame, he finds it does. It’s all that does. 

 

Two days pass, then Judah returns. 

“Can you say my name, Messala?” he asks. “Weren’t we friends?”

“We were children then,” Messala says. 

“We’re not much older now.”

They walk. Messala leans against his cane, more heavily each step; his vanity has impaired the process, made his prostheses cumbersome to maintain his height and illusions, a decision he now rues. He stumbles and Judah catches him, holds him by his arms there beside the impluvium, too close, too warm. 

They’re no longer children. 

“You’ve forgiven me,” Messala says. 

“I have.”

He doesn’t want forgiveness. He’s ashamed of what he wants. 

 

Three days later, he meets the elder Arrius. He knows who Messala is, what he’s done, what was done to him, but says nothing of it. Their conversation’s civil. Judah only watches. 

Messala’s litter takes him home but Judah comes there late at night, rouses slaves, finds him with his hands already at the straps at his thighs. Messala fumes. 

“You did this for me,” Judah says. He kneels by Messala’s sandals, places his hands on the thick leather straps. “I forgive you, Messala. Can you forgive me?”

“No,” he says, but Judah’s fingers find the straps. He lets them.

 

To forgive Judah, he must forgive himself. 

At first, he denies there’s forgiveness needed. Judah smiles knowingly and sets aside Messala’s prostheses. Messala is angry, forms fists, but Judah’s callused hands rub salve into his reddened skin and he knows his anger’s really shame. 

“I don’t need help,” Messala says. 

“You never have,” Judah replies, but doesn’t stop. Messala doesn’t stop him.

Beneath their clothes they’re both scarred. Judah bears the marks of the lash; Messala feels he might have put them there himself with all he’s done, but Judah lets him touch. 

It’s like nothing’s changed, but everything has. 

 

A year passes quickly. 

They visit Messala’s villa in spring, sailing out of Ostia and north along the coast on their chartered ship. Judah seems distant on the journey. When Messala places a hand on his shoulder, Judah flinches. There are slaves below the decks. 

A year passes quickly. 

They return to Rome in autumn. Messala lets the Greek make more adjustments, refinements, his prostheses no longer quite like legs but he can walk more freely now. Judah seems proud. Messala wants to be angry. He’s not.

A year passes quickly.

They’re so often together it seems they’re never apart. 

 

Messala turns to politics. He’s successful. Judah is amused. 

Their friendship is public and rumours abound; Messala’s retorts are scathing and though he smiles through their delivery, he’s ashamed. He won’t let it show but Judah knows. 

“It was simpler in Judaea,” Messala says. “We were boys. You weren’t Roman.”

He wonders if the fact he’s half a man means he’s half a Roman means it’s ironically proper. Perhaps he should let himself become cinaedus to Judah’s vir. But he’s trying to construct himself as a public figure. 

“You are who you are,” Judah says. “Within these walls, at least.”

 

Three new years pass. Messala is in favour. 

He watches Judah drive horses at the circus, legs throbbing as the chariots circle. They leave together then, an easy walk, Messala leaning on his cane though Judah’s ever watchful. He doesn’t need help. Judah doesn’t offer. 

At the funeral of Quintus Arrius, Judah speaks from the heart. 

“You never did learn rhetoric,” Messala says, after. 

“I learned from you,” Judah replies, his Latin perfect. “I can spit fire with the best of you, Messala. I just don’t care to.”

He’d have felt proud once, superior. He doesn’t now. He knows better.

 

Nine years come and go. 

Messala has reached political heights and Judah keeps accounts for them both. Messala knows Judah is a former Jew, gives money to the Christians; Messala is Roman, should turn him in for his religion. He turns a blind eye instead.

They entertain in Messala’s home. Judah is popular in their circle, but Quintus Arrius is a cloak he wears that’s cast aside when the last guest leaves.

Judah’s mouth on him at night stirs fire. There was never room between them for indifference; it was always love or hate. Eros. Mars.

The circus is forgotten. 

 

Seventeen years. Twenty-three. Thirty. More.

At the funeral of Judah Ben-Hur, Messala speaks from the heart.

He doesn’t know the Christian rites, so the funeral is Roman. He regrets that he pushed away Judah’s religion, saw it only at the end; Judah wasn’t afraid to die. 

“I’ll see you again,” Judah said. Messala has never believed except in that moment.

After the funeral, he withdraws, returns to his villa instead of Rome, remembers. Judaea was long ago. Their lives began after the circus, they didn’t end with it. 

Messala never said the word forgiveness but sought it daily. Judah knew.


End file.
